The custom of trial for the flitch has of late years been revived in a somewhat debased style at Great Dunmow, some three miles distant from the original scene, but it is pleasant to record that the hallowed relic of Dunmow's ancient priory is now no longer used in connection with the carnival. It rests more fittingly in the chancel of the little church, having been restored, after the lapse of some three and a half centuries, to its original sacred purpose.

In the Church of Much Hadham, Herts, two ancient chairs exist which are deeply interesting to students of the Gothic styles. They have backs of great height decorated with a cusped arch, and finished at the top with a bold moulding. Their arms have the picturesque slope peculiar to Gothic examples, terminating on either side of the arch with a crocketed pinnacle. These chairs, which are said to have formerly been connected, and used in the rare capacity of movable sedilia, date from the latter half of the fourteenth century.

The amount of destruction that was wrought during the dissolution of the monasteries is incalculable. The chair at St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, a magnificent piece of carved furniture dating from the middle of the fifteenth century, is another instance of the conversion of ecclesiastical possessions to secular purposes by the breaking up of conventual stalls. In this case the wealth of decoration is extraordinary, nearly the whole surface of the chair being covered with sculptured tracery edged with the conventional vine tendril, and further embellished with heraldic beasts carved in bold relief. The uprights are surmounted by carved figures representing on one side two bears supporting a crown, and on the other an elephant and castle, the latter being the badge of Coventry. The whole piece is in a most beautiful state of preservation. A curious parallel with the Dunmow relic occurs here, for this chair at one time was used in the pageant held in connection with the Lady Godiva celebrations. Brewer introduces an ingenious theory regarding it in his Warwickshire section of the 'Beauties of England and Wales,' published in 1814. He says: 'It has evidently been a double chair, the parts where the other half fitted in being visible.

It might perhaps have been made for the reception of Henry VI. and his Queen when they visited the gild,' adding, however, 'or, probably, it was brought from the priory at the dissolution of monasteries, where it might have served as the bishop's throne or the prior's seat,' There is little doubt that the latter theory is the true one.

In the author's own collection is a chair dating from the end of the fifteenth century, built with the simplicity characteristic of work prior to the Renaissance, and possessing gracefully-moulded linen panels. The seat of the chair forms a locker, opened by a door at the back, being doubtless intended to keep books or writing materials in. The piece, which is of immense weight, somewhat resembles in its low, squat outline the chair of state in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry.* This interesting relic had remained for many years in a neglected state in a barn adjacent to a ruined priory, and was sold with some other effects during the distress occasioned by a series of bad years, culminating in the disastrous summer of 1903. It is chairs of this type, but having a tall back surmounted by a canopy, that so rouse our admiration in old MS. illustrations.*

LINEN-PANELLED CHAIR, TEMP. HENRY VII., IN THE POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR.

* From all that we are able to learn concerning chairs of the Gothic or Pointed periods, it is certain that the style most generally adopted in England was the low-backed. The chairs remaining at Lincoln, Dunmow, and Coventry, as well as the Evesham example. (which is pictured by Shaw), in addition to the delineations which appear in contemporary MS. illustrations, all go to prove this. High-backed English examples of the Gothic period, such as those at Much Hadham, are exceptions which probably approximate to the province of fitted furniture. This is entirely opposed to Continental art, which mostly produced such lofty articles as those tall, straight-backed chairs to be seen at the Cluny and other French museums, or, to refer to a pictured specimen, that shown in the wonderful painting by Jan van Eyck in our National Gallery, representing Jan Arnolfini and his wife.

It will be noticed in the two full-page representations of Gothic chairs presented with this chapter that the sloping arms terminate in a rising semicircular formation at their ends. From MS. illustrations of the fourteenth and fifteenth century we learn that these members were sometimes elongated so as to form a rest for writing-boards such as were used by scribes. In Shaw's book on 'Specimens of Ancient Furniture' there is an engraving of a superbly ornamented chair of fourteenth-century workmanship, formerly owned by the Abbots of Evesham, in which the arms terminate with boldly-carved figures, which project sufficiently to serve as supports for a writing-board if desired. When these members were not prolonged the writing-board was sometimes held in position by a small iron rod on a pivot connecting the top of the board with the back of the seat. An instance of this feature appears in the illustration of St. Jude writing his epistle, in the MS. Harl., No. 2,897 - a work of the late fourteenth century.

* In England the shaped canopies over state chairs now only exist in MS. illustrations, but their actual appearance may be ascertained from the canopy above the font in Pilton Church, Devon. This structure, which dates from the early years of Henry VIII.'s reign, exactly follows the lines of the canopied chair-back, and, as a detail, is probable unique.